THEME: CHAIN REACTION

ONLINE TALKS ROADMAP

REWARDS

This is only a quick summary table of the rewards. For details, requirements and conditions to be eligible for the rewards, please read the full descriptions below.

Defold Foundation

Best games in Overall category will get Steam Gift Cards from the Defold Foundation:

1. 100 € Steam Gift Card
2. 50 € Steam Gift Card
3. 25 € Steam Gift Card
4. - 10. place: 10 € Steam Gift Card

Wavedash Challenge

Our partner Wavedash is sponsoring rewards for the 10 best games deployed to Wavedash - Wavedash Credits prizes!

Wavedash is a browser-native gaming platform that lets users play modern, high-performance games instantly in a web browser without any downloads or installations.

1. 100 € Wavedash Credit
2. 50 € Wavedash Credit
3. 25 € Wavedash Credit
4. - 10. place: 10 € Wavedash Credit

To participate in the challenge and be eligible for the reward, you are obliged to deploy the game on Wavedash, and provide a link to it in your game page description, so we can find your entry. Deploying to Wavedash is easy and requires no review, read more in the documentation. 

CraftPix Rewards

CraftPix  is sponsoring rewards for the best games in the jam - CraftPix yearly Ultimate Access membership!

CraftPix.net is an online store and resource specializing in high-quality premium and free 2D game assets for game developers, indie studios, and hobbyists.

1. - 4. place: 1-Year CraftPix membership (up to 5 people each team).

Ovani Sound Rewards

Ovani Sound  is sponsoring rewards for the best games in the jam - Ovani Sound store credits and one special reward for the winner - a custom main theme song!

OvaniSound.com is a provider of royalty-free music, sound effects, voice-over packs, and audio plugins built specifically for indie game developers, filmmakers, and creators.

1. place: $350 Ovani store credit + One custom main theme song for the winner
2. -5. place: $200 Ovani store credit (per team)

Additionally, ALL participants will receive a link with:

• Access to the free Ovani Sound FX Sampler
• Access to the free Ovani Music Sampler
• A special game jam Bundle Builder link with discounts exclusive for the participants - 35%, 45%, and 55%

Poki Rewards

Our partner Poki is sponsoring rewards for the 3 best games in the jam!

Poki is a free online gaming platform where users can instantly play more than 1,500 browser games. It ranks #1 in over 100 countries and reaches more than 100 million players every month.

1. - 3. place: Fast-track publishing review

• Additionally, these top 3 games after being published on Poki will receive €1,000 upfront payment.

The €1,000 is a release fee, meaning Poki will pay it upon the game's full release on the platform and then recoup it from the developer's revenue share. This ensures that developers who put in the work to release their game on Poki know they will earn at least €1,000 for their efforts. After that, they can earn significantly more through revenue share if the game performs well on Poki.

Additionally, every game that reaches full release receives a temporary featured spot on the Poki homepage.

Kenney Rewards

Kenney is sponsoring rewards for the best games in the jam!

Kenney.nl is a very popular website created by asset developer Kenney that provides thousands of completely free, high-quality game development 2D, 3D and audio assets.

1. - 4. place: Kenney Game Assets All-in-1 + Asset Forge Deluxe
   

Heroic Labs Multiplayer Challenge

Our Partner Heroic Labs is sponsoring rewards for the best games in the Heroic Labs Multiplayer Challenge!

Heroic Labs is a technology company that builds server software, cloud infrastructure, and management tools for online video games.

1. - 3. best games on Overall category with Nakama integrated: 3 months of Heroic Cloud (Dev tier)

To participate in the challenge and be eligible for the reward, you are obliged to incorporate Heroic Labs Nakama in your game, and mention Nakama in your game page short description (the tagline), so we can find your entry. You can read the guide here, check Defold Nakama example here and get Nakama for Defold here. Nakama Defold SDK and server is open-source and Apache 2.0 licensed, so you can use and self-host it for free. If game doesn't require multiplayer to be playable and fun for voting - it's enough to submit a video proof to Defold team of it working with your locally hosted server, to be eligible for the rewards.

Photon Fusion Multiplayer Challenge

Photon is sponsoring rewards for the best games in the Photon Fusion Multiplayer Challenge!

Photon powers the networking behind thousands of live multiplayer titles. The Fusion extension is a drop-in native extension with a Lua API: connect to the Photon Cloud, get matched into a room and sync your game objects, with no servers to run yourself. Works on HTML5, desktop and mobile.

1. - 5. best games in Overall category with Photon Fusion integrated: Fusion Plus voucher, 100 Concurrent Users (CCU) for 1 year

• Additionally, the 1st place gets: One hour online video call with a Photon expert, covering the multiplayer in your game or any other multiplayer topic you are interested in.

Every Photon account gets one free 100 CCU app, enough to build and launch a multiplayer game at no cost. The voucher stacks on top of that, so winners run on a 200 CCU plan for a full year, plenty of room to turn your jam entry into a real launch (and if user has other subscriptions, e.g. 500CCU, it stacks up to 600 CCU).

To participate in the challenge and be eligible for the reward, you are obliged to incorporate Photon Fusion in your game, and mention Fusion in your game page short description (the tagline), so we can find your entry. You can read the guide here, check Defold Fusion example here and get Fusion for Defold here. Photon Fusion has a free tier with 100 CCU, which should be enough for the development during the game jam and voting period.

SOCIAL MEDIA & COMMUNITY

Use hashtags  #DefoldGameJam  or  #MadeWithDefold  in social media!

RULES

1. Your game(s) should be made with Defold, fit the theme and be submitted in the jam period, to be eligible for rewards.
2. Your game should be playable on PC or in a browser (HTML5). It should not require additional external hardware or software to run.
3. Please be mindful and respectful of your peers. The game should not contain: pornography, racism, hate speech, nothing illegal etc.
4. You must be aged 13 or older (otherwise your parent/guardian needs to submit your creation).
5. There is no limit on the number of people per team, and people can be in multiple teams. Only one person needs to join Itch and submit the game. However, if others on the team also join Itch, they can be tagged as contributors. (On your game's itch page, pick "Edit", "More", "Admins", and follow the instructions).15
6. Your game can participate in other game jams as well (if those are fitting given jam rules of course).
   
7. You can use whatever art, audio and/or code assets/libraries you have the legal right to use.
8. Reasonable use of AI is permitted during game development, but you should briefly indicate on the game page what specifically the AI was used for.
9. Your game belongs to you! We claim no rights or ownership of your game. We do request the right to use your game only for purpose of publicizing the game jam. Any game submitted to the jam may show up in a Unfolding Gamedev, Asatte Games and Defold YouTube channels video without your express permission. If you take part in the game jam and submit your game, it means you agree to this and all Rules.

SCORES & RATING

After jam period is over, everyone is invited to play the games and rate games in Overall category, which will be revealed at the end of the voting period and which ranking determines winners. There are additional categories "Presentation" - for best audiovisuals and art style and "Game Design" for best game design, feel and gameplay!

Winners will be announced after voting period. If you will be a winner, host of the jam will be trying to contact you in order to get you a reward, so please leave a contact info and be responsive to make it quick! Steam Gift Cards are rewards from The Defold Foundation - please add Defold ('defoldengine') to the friends on Steam to make the process faster.

It's an official Game Jam driven by the Defold Foundation and the Defold community. Things shouldn't, but may change, for example by requests of peers, to suit the community as best as possible and we will inform you every time it does.

All product names, logos, covers, images and brands are property of their respective owners. All company, product and service names used in this website are for identification purposes only. Use of these names, logos and brands does not imply endorsement.

CREDITS & THANKS

Organised by Paweł Jarosz since 2020 and now by the The Defold Foundation since 2026.
Thanks to The Defold Foundation, Wavedash, CraftPix, Ovani Sound, Poki, Kenney, Heroic Labs and Photon for sponsoring the rewards and challenges!
Thanks to all the speakers of our Online Conference!

INSPIRATIONS

Defold Assets Portal
Defold Examples
Defold Learn Hub
Ben James' list of games + source
Bjorn Ritzl's (Defold team) examples
Unofficial Defold Game Jam #1
Unofficial Defold Game Jam #2
#MadeWithDefold Jam 2020
#MadeWithDefold Jam 2022
#MadeWithDefold Jam 2023 
#MadeWithDefold Jam 2024
#MadeWithDefold Jam 2025